Job Chapter 30 to 31 : Easy-to-Read Version  | SearchSearch | Next Version | Previous Page | Next Page |

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30 But now, even the men who are younger than I am are making fun of me. And their fathers were so worthless that I wouldn’t put them with the dogs guarding my sheep. 2The fathers of those young men are too weak to help me. They are old and tired—their muscles are not hard and strong any more. 3They are like dead men—They are starving with nothing to eat. So they eat the dry dust of the desert. 4They pull up salt plants in the desert. They eat the roots from the broom tree. 5They are forced away from other people. People shout at them like they are thieves. 6They must live in the dry river beds, hillside caves and holes in the ground. 7They howl in the bushes, and huddle together under thorn bushes. 8They are a group of worthless people with no names who were forced to leave their country! 9“Now those men’s sons sing songs about me to make fun of me. My name has become a bad word to them. 10Those young men hate me, they stand away from me, they think they are better than me. They even spit in my face! 11God has taken the string from my bow and made me weak. Those young men don’t stop themselves but turn against me with all their anger. 12They attack me at my right side. They knock my feet out from under me. {I feel like a city being attacked:} They build dirt ramps against my walls to attack and destroy me.  13They guard the road so I can’t escape. They succeed in destroying me. They don’t need anyone to help them. 14They break a hole in the wall. They come rushing through it, and the crashing rocks fall on me. 15I am shaking with fear. Those young men chase away my honor like the wind blows things away. My safety disappears like a cloud. 16“Now my life is almost gone, and I will soon die. Days of suffering have grabbed me. 17All my bones ache at night. Pain never stops chewing on me. 18God grabbed the collar of my coat and twisted my clothes out of shape. 19God threw me into the mud, and I become like dirt and ashes. 20“God, I cry out to you for help, but you don’t answer. I stand up and pray, but you don’t pay attention to me. 21God, you are mean to me. You use your power to hurt me. 22God, you let the strong wind blow me away. You throw me around in the storm. 23I know you will lead me to my death. Every living person must die. 24“But, surely no one will hurt a person that is already ruined and crying for help. 25God, you know that I have cried for people in trouble. You know that my heart was very sad for poor people. 26But when I looked for good things. bad things came instead. When I looked for light, darkness came. 27I am torn up inside. The suffering never stops. And the suffering has just started. 28I am always sad and depressed, without relief. I stand up in the assembly and yell for help. 29I am all alone like the wild dogs and ostriches {in the desert}. 30My skin is burnt and peeling away. My body is hot with fever. 31My harp is tuned to play sad songs. My flute makes sounds like sad crying.


31 “I made an agreement with my eyes not to look at a girl in a way that would make me want her. 2What does God All-Powerful do to people? How does God pay people back from his home high in heaven? 3God sends trouble and ruin to wicked people, and disaster to people that do wrong. 4God knows everything I do, and he sees every step I take. 5“I have not lied and tried to cheat people! 6If God would use accurate scales,* then he would know that I am innocent. 7{Then God would know} if I walked off the right path, if my eyes led my heart to do evil, or if my hands are dirty with sin, 8Then {it would be right for other people} to eat the crops I planted and to pull up the plants I grew. 9“If I have desired another woman or waited at my neighbor’s door to sin with his wife, 10then let my wife cook another man’s food, and let other men sleep with her. 11Why? Because sexual sin is shameful. It is a sin that must be punished. 12Sexual sin is like a fire that burns until it destroys everything! It could ruin everything I have ever done. 13“If I refuse to be fair to my slaves when they have a complaint against me, 14then what will I do when I must face God? What will I say when God asks me to explain what I did? 15God made me in my mother’s body. And God also made my slaves. God shaped us all inside our mothers. 16“I have never refused to help poor people. I always gave widows what they needed.  17I have never been selfish with my food. I always gave food to orphans. 18All my life, I have been like a father to children that had no father. All my life, I have taken care of widows. 19When I found people suffering because they didn’t have clothes, or a poor man with no coat, 20I always gave them clothes. I used the wool from my own sheep to make them warm. And they blessed me with all their heart. 21I never shook my fist at an orphan when I saw him at the gate asking for help.* 22If I ever did that, then may my arm be pulled from its socket and fall from my shoulder! 23But I didn’t do any of those bad things. I am afraid of God’s punishment. His majesty (importance) scares me.* 24“I have never trusted in my riches. {I always trusted God to help me.} I never said to pure gold, ‘You are my hope.’ 25I have been wealthy. But that didn’t make me proud! I earned a lot of money. But that is not what made me happy! 26I have never worshiped the bright sun, or the beautiful moon. 27I was never foolish enough to worship the sun and the moon. 28That is also a sin that must be punished. If I had worshiped those things, then I would have been unfaithful to God All-Powerful. 29“I have never been happy when my enemies were destroyed. I have never laughed at my enemies when bad things happened to them. 30I have never let my mouth sin by cursing* my enemies, and wishing for them to die. 31All the people in my house know that I have always given food to strangers. 32I always invited strangers into my home so they would not have to sleep in the streets at night. 33Other people try to hide their sins. But I have not hidden my guilt. 34I have never been afraid of what people might say. That fear never made me keep quiet. It never made me refuse to go outside. I am not afraid of people’s hate for me. 35“Oh, I wish someone would listen to me! Let me explain my side. I wish God All-Powerful would answer me. I wish he would write down what he thinks I did wrong. 36Then I would wear that sign around my neck. I would put it on my head like a crown. 37If God did that, then I could explain everything that I have done. I could come to God like a leader with my head held high. 38“I didn’t steal my land from anyone. No one can accuse me of stealing it. 39I always paid the farmers for the food that I got from the land. And I never tried to take land away from the person who owned it. 40If I ever did any of those bad things, then let thorns and weeds grow in my fields instead of wheat and barley*!” Job’s words are finished.

accurate scales Literally, “scales of righteousness.” As a word play, this could mean either “accurate scales” or “scales that show a person is good.” Verse 21 Or, “I never threatened an orphan, even when I saw that I was supported in court.” His majesty … me Or, “I couldn’t stand before his majesty.” cursing Asking for bad things to happen to someone. barley A kind of grain. 

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